Magic Statistics

This from the independent inquiry into the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq. The report also says: "No one was in charge" on the 38th floor of the UN skyscraper, where the secretary-general's offices are located.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan says he is responsible for the "embarrassing" findings, but he refuses to resign. Seems to be a contradiction there. Mr Annan says he's responsible for allowing UN officials to pervert and personally profit from a programme designed to ensure that Iraqi citizens received food and other basic necessities as an exception to the UN's embargo on sales of Iraqi oil. These officials pocketed millions of dollars diverted from a purportedly humanitarian programme and corrupted politicians and journalists around the world. Mr Annan admits his reponsibility for this colossal indulgence of avarice at the expense of ordinary Iraqis living under Saddam, but he doesn't feel that this calls for his resignation. One wonders what crimes would have to be committed on his watch for him to realise he's not up to the job.

And—surprise, surprise—another scandal is being uncovered at the UN.

Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations — and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery — but perhaps not for much longer.

Last Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the head of the U.N.'s own budget oversight committee, a Russian named Vladimir Kuznetsov, on charges of laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes paid by companies seeking contracts with the United Nations.

This guy was so brazenly corrupt that he deposited part of his cut in the UN's own staff credit union! That investigation and others are ongoing. More corrupt UN officials will be caught.

In the recent past, there has been sex scandal after sex scandal, some involving children. The UN has failed to take meaningful action in Sudan. But, again, this is nothing new: before Sudan, there was Rwanda, Haiti, Bosnia, and others. There is now nothing left of whatever moral authority the UN once possessed. The possibility must be considered that the UN has degenerated into a force for evil in the world today. If that is so, it's time to close up shop. The world would be a better place without the UN.

No, this didn't involve the people you're thinking of: this happened in Nigeria. The primate was the Most Rev Peter Akinola, Primate of the Church of Nigeria; the president was Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria; and the focus of the criticism was government policies.

Now if only a similarly high-ranking Canadian Roman Catholic would muster the intestinal fortitude to speak the truth to Paul Martin.

via The Free Republic Traditional Anglican Directory.

The headline of this story in the Daily Telegraph reads "New film uses CIA files to puncture myth about Che", but the actual story does not live up to its billing. The story mentions the new CIA files and some of the information contained in them, and it also refers to unflattering known facts of Che Guevara's life that were not included in the recent film hagiography The Motorcycle Diaries, but it nowhere actually states that the new film will present a, shall we say, more true-to-life view than did Diaries. The closest the news writer can come is: "The director . . . is likely to puncture the romantic myth of Guevara . . ."  Exactly why this is likely is left unclear.

One hopes that this will indeed come to pass and a reasonably accurate portrayal of Fidel's comrade-in-arms will indeed be filmed. Based on his catalogue of movies to date, director Stephen Soderburgh would appear very capable of making such a movie.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I have a bad feeling about this. Che's family has just sicked the lawyers on all those who allegedly misuse the famous Communist's pop-icon photo without their permission. Those lawyers could cause a lot of financial grief for Mr Soderburgh's producers if they were to turn their attention to this £20 million film project and deem it insufficiently respectful to the sacred memory of the beloved mass murderer. Film company executives being the bottom-line kind of people they are, I can easily foresee another romanticised whitewash coming to a multiplex near you.